


The beast in the cave

by anassa_anemou



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Adventure, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 05:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anassa_anemou/pseuds/anassa_anemou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sir Gawain has a new quest to take care in the name of the King.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The beast in the cave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Skeiler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skeiler/gifts).



> I wanted to write this because Arthurian Myths been something I grew up loving. I use to read the old Portuguese troubadour novels in the public library. One or two years later I fell in love with Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon. I hope you like. 
> 
> I chosen Gawain because it’s been a long time since I wanted to tell his story. When I read Mists of Avalon he was there and there was potential, but the character remained secondary. So, I went on researching and put tiny bits of info to make this. It’s mostly how I see Gawain.

Once they told Sir Gawain was the most courageous Knight of the Round Table. His adventures were know in most villages, as was his fame as a Maiden champion. Lancelot used to jeer him about it, saying his fame came from his running from the woman’s husbands.

He is traveling beside his horse, trying to let the poor animal rest with the reduced load. It’s been eight days on the road, and two days since the last village he passed. Kay prepared his provisions himself, saying that if he had to be castle ridden for a few weeks with his latest injure, then he would make himself worth it.

The king sent him on a new quest; some villagers were afraid of a strange animal on the outskirts near their harvests. Arthur sent him, worried that maybe since the villagers came to Camelot, it could be something serious.

“Or it could be some sorcerer trying to scare people away from his home for protection.”

There was something moving in the horizon line, probably horses, which let to people. It was a good sine: that meant he was finally near the city and he would have a night sleep in a bed instead of the open field and some warm food he didn’t have to cook in a poor attempt of a fire while the rain tried to extinguish it.  
Gwendling received him with some other villagers, smiling even if he could see the haunted eyes. Maybe it was more than all of them seemed to realise. They sent him to a tavern where a large bowl of hot meat stew, bread and a pitch of beer was served. Nothing was more fulfilling than something hot you didn’t prepared.

He watched the people around, looking all tired from the day’s work, he was sure it’s was the time to plant the wheat. When Gwendling sited with him he decided to ask information on the beast before he could rest and go out there with his sword.

“The people that survived tell us it’s big, no one seems to see it because it hides in a cavern, deep inside the forest. Some say it has lots of eyes, others that they smell a putrid breath. At first we thought it was idle thought, but latter, experiment men started to die and we worried. If grown men are killed, soon who will help the harvest? ”

“Very well, my friend. Let me rest for a few hours and we will fight this beast.”

***

In the morning, before the sun was up in the sky, Gawain went to the forest. The dark made the trees invent new shadows, personal monsters that even a experienced knight like him had to look more than one time to be certain. He walked south like the villagers told him and when the first rays of sun started to filter trough the trees he found the cave.

On the floor there were several bones, and he wondered if it were only from the villagers or from other travelers. He stepped carefully, trying not to make any noise; he didn’t need a repeat from the last time when Lancelot stepped in rock and and tumbled forward making both of them fall in the river instead with flash eating fishes.

Crack. Something was lurking around him and it didn’t sound human. The air was hotter then before and he started to smell what he guessed the villagers founded putrid. He turned around and crouched, making his body compact in a tight ball. Now he had to wait.

A huff and something knocked onto him, making him roll on his side. It was like a shadow roved above his head, he couldn’t see the sun anymore, nor the trees. It was like when the sun hided behind the moon and Merlin joked the gods were coupling. He stayed quiet, hoping the creature would perch somewhere.

It felt like hours, but every time he moved the thing would rove and change it’s place. This was not working! Well, if the stealth approach wasn’t what the beast wanted, then he would slay the bastard. Gawain jumped to his feet, unsheathing his sword.

He ran forward and jumped to the side when the air moved in his direction. The beast touched the bare skin of his forearms, it burned. Two steps back he saw something large resting against a tree trunk do he turned his back, a risque move, but a necessary one. He hid against a rock and let the beast go looking for him, so he turned and now crouched back in the floor; when the beast came he lunged sideways and jumped in air, sinking his sword in the what he assumed was the belly, since it felt like pudgy muscles.

The thing screamed and he tried to cover his ears, but it would be reckless to release the sword. He doubled in pain when something punched his stomach; when he felt to the floor everything was spinning and he wondered if he was going to die.

***

He wasn’t dead because he felt pain in his ribs; the room wasn’t bright, but dark and he didn’t think he was blind or beneath the earth, not that his family would bury him like the people in Cornwall, what it meant he wasn’t death. He shuddered to think in his body burning in a funerary pyre.

A smooth hand rested in his forehead and it reminded him of his mother when he was a child: once and while she would have maternal moments. When he or his brothers were sick she would make strong soap and sit by their bed singing quietly while they ate. Now, a man, he wasn’t bitter anymore, he knew it was time for him to marry and let the girl take care of him, but now an then when he was a kid he would sit in the garden and ask the sun to kill his mother, that way maybe he would get a stepmother that would care more.   
He heard something being murmured and a spicy smell of something that tingled his noose and his conscious slip in a dream land.

***

He woke up to see a fair woman sited by his bed, her long hair loose like only a wife would let her husband see or a child that didn’t know of the world perverseness. She smiled gently at him and lowered her eyes when Gwendling entered the room.

“Good, good, you are alright. Shaya will take good care of you for the rest of the morning and later you can go back on the road. The King sent a message he wishes you to return if matter been taken care and since they are I though you would like to leave in the hopes to be back at the castle for the King’s feast in your name.” Gawain was certain he looked confused and the man laughed at him, turning his attention to the girl. “Go get him some stew while I talk privately.” Gwendling waited and only started talking when the girl was gone. “ You killed the dragon and we are certain it was one, when we feed the goats and they didn’t die we skinned the beast for leather and chopped for meat. The head will be dried and put in a arch I sent some men to do in the entrance of the village. The men decided not to let the kids or the woman see the whole cadaver, after all we don’t want them fainting or panicking.”

“But what happened to me? How did I come back? The last thing I remember is falling in the forest ground after something punched my stomach.”

“Oh, yes, Marven found you. he was chopping wood when he heard the beast scream and when he didn’t hear anything else he went to look for you. And there it was this gross scaly thing in the floor and a few feet away you with it’s tail laying on top of you. He saw you were unconscious and called us. The rest is folly, we brought you and Shaya been taking care of you.”

“Who is she? With her hair down I... ” He hesitated, the last thing he wished was to disrespect the man.

“Shaya is a orphan and had nowhere to go after she widowed, so she kept the house for herlsef. Very good with herbs, a good thing since your arm was purple with the beast poison. Her husband died a few years and she been here alone, we think she liked you since it’s been long since she let another man enter here. She always take care of people in the barn.”

The woman came back and let the tray rest in the beside table. She hoisted him up and rested the tray in his lap, giving another shy smile in the end. Perhaps he would have a bit of fun before returning to the court.

“I prepared everything for your travel, but eat, bath and don’t forget to pass by my house. We have presents for you and the King. I will let you alone and I know Shaya will take care of you well.” Gwendling smiled and walked out of the room.  
“When you finished your soap call me and I will take you to your bath. The water is already bolling.” She looked at him, her whole posture changing and he knew the shy manner was only a show to the rest of the villagers.

“I thank you my lady, Gwendling told me I owe my life to your healing hands.” She laughed and turned away, murmuring back at him:

“I hope you know how to reward me for my work.”

He would eat the soup fast and take the grime of his body and than, it was for his honour to look for the woman that saved his life or so he would tell Lancelot when he came back to the Castle.

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this and I am currently working in writting four other drabbles of Sir Gawain's other adventures. I hope to post them as treats, but if I can't, in the next few days they should be up. Let me know if you want to see Shaya and Gawain together(I'm normally a slash writer, but I'm intrigued to see a more open woman like I imagine Shaya) or Lancelot and Gawain bickering when Gawain get back to the castle.


End file.
